When the CEO of one in every of Canada’s then-largest cryptocurrency exchanges QuadrigaCX instantly died in India again in 2019, his spouse Jennifer Robertson’s life fell aside, in keeping with her new ebook.
Talking on CTV’s Your Morning Tuesday, Robertson stated the aftermath of her husband Gerald Cotten’s sudden dying from problems of Crohn’s illness has haunted her, after it shortly turned clear that the hundreds of thousands of dollars price of traders’ cryptocurrency her husband dealt with have been locked away in offshore bitcoin wallets that solely he had the passwords for.
What adopted have been allegations of her husband faking his dying, that she was someway concerned in what was described as a Ponzi scheme, and questions on her naiveté relating to her husband’s enterprise and their beforehand lavish way of life.
Now she is telling her facet of the story.
“I made a decision to jot down this ebook as a result of I wished to have the ability to have a platform the place I might say precisely what I wished to say, and the media wouldn’t be capable to twist it,” Robertson stated of ‘Bitcoin widow: Love, Betrayal & The Lacking Hundreds of thousands.’ “I additionally had plenty of grief and issues I needed to work by way of so I needed to ensure that I used to be prepared to jot down the ebook and have or not it's revealed.”
Robertson stated that her new ebook may be very clear about her psychological well being struggles within the hopes that her experiences will assist others “going by way of one thing troublesome” make a turnaround.
When requested how she felt about traders turning to her for solutions about their hundreds of thousands disappearing together with her husband’s dying, Robertson stated she felt “very betrayed” by him.
“He had talked about that if something have been to occur to him, there can be this ‘useless man swap’ which would supply me with all of his monetary info or his dad and mom might need received it, he stated – after which it by no means got here,” she stated. “It threw us and Quadriga into absolute chaos, he affected so many lives and he damage so many individuals.”
Robertson stated coping with the conspiracy theories about her husband faking his dying have been “troublesome.”
“I noticed him die, I introduced his physique again to Halifax with me from India and there have been quite a few individuals who have seen his physique, together with his mom and his father,” she continued. “I so badly wished Gerry to clearly be alive, one as a result of he's my husband and two as a result of he might type this all out or present solutions, so when the world is screaming ‘he’s nonetheless alive,’ and you realize that he’s not, it may be troublesome to take care of that while you’re grieving.”
Talking about when the Ontario Securities Fee decided that Cotten was mainly working a Ponzi scheme and Robertson was pressured at hand over the majority of the property left to her in her husband’s will, which was signed two weeks earlier than his dying, Robertson stated she misplaced her residence however simply “needed to maintain pushing ahead.”
She finally went again to highschool and fell in love with educating, she stated, and is wanting ahead to “a brand new chapter” in her life, telling Your Morning that she is now within the third trimester of being pregnant.
However some issues are arduous to neglect.
“I believe essentially the most misunderstood a part of the whole lot that occurred was that I had one thing to do with Gerry’s disappearance or Gerry’s dying, or that I hadn’t cared in regards to the traders, which is completely not true,” Robertson stated. “I attempted to do the whole lot that I might to the customers – I gave entry to all of Gerry’s laptops, all our private conversations, the whole lot I might do.”
Robertson stated she by no means suspected something in all these years with Cotten.
Jennifer Robertson speaks with CTV's Your Morning, Tuesday, Jan. 18, 2022.
Bitcoin tokens are proven in Sandy, Utah on April 3, 2013. (AP/Rick Bowmer)
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